News Digest News Digest (August 17, 2005)

Paly teacher drops out of council race

After speaking with school officials, a first-year Palo Alto High School teacher dropped his plans to use two 10th-grade government classes as a campaign committee for his bid for the Palo Alto City Council.

Early last week, teacher David Rapaport said the point of the required classroom exercise was not to get elected but to teach his students about local politics. But on Thursday, Paly Principal Scott Laurence told him the students couldn't be used for Rapaport's personal gain, even theoretically. Rapaport agreed to drop out.

"I didn't want the main idea to get lost in the election itself," he said.

Rapaport said he still plans to simulate the experience in his classes and students will debate local issues and decide their positions on them.

Rapaport submitted his paperwork to run before speaking with school officials. On Friday, he admitted it probably would have been better to consult with school officials beforehand.

His name will not appear on the ballot because the filing deadline had not yet passed. -- Bill D'Agostino
Palo Alto students push forward on state tests

Students in Palo Alto's public schools made small gains on their state standardized test scores last year, with 79.7 percent of second- through 11th-graders proficient or advanced in English language arts and 81.5 percent of second- through seventh-graders proficient or advanced in math. Those figures are up about 2 and 3 percent, respectively, from the 2003-2004 school year.

"We're on the top end of that test. Our curriculum is a lot broader and deeper than anything a multiple choice test is going to cover," said Bill Garrison, the district's director of testing and assessment. "It does help us sort out the students who may be having problems. But we're not under the gun in terms of accountability."

The state Department of Education on Monday released scores from the 2004-'05 academic year's California Standardized Testing and Reporting system, known as STAR, and the California High School Exit Exam, called the CAHSEE.

Students' scores on the CAHSEE also remained similar to the prior year, with about 95 percent of sophomores and juniors passing both the English language arts and math portions of the test. The upcoming school year's seniors are the first graduating class that have to pass the CAHSEE to graduate. Students who did not pass the test last year will have three more chances to take it this year.

Palo Alto Unified School District's STAR scores are well above the state average. In California, about 40 percent of students are proficient or advanced in English language arts, while 38 percent of students scored proficient or advanced in math.

On the CAHSEE, about 88 percent of students in the class of 2006 have passed one of the two test portions statewide. A complete report for how many students have passed both sections will be released next month.
Agilent to make cutbacks, sell-off parts of company

Agilent Technologies announced Monday that it will cut staff and sell-off the Semiconductor Products segment of the company.

The Hewlett Packard spin-off headquartered in Palo Alto plans to trim 1,300 employees from its 28,000 work force, according to a press release. The cuts will most likely come in the research and development segment of the company.

The move is part of an effort to focus the company back on its original purpose, the test-and-measurement business. To that end, the company will also sell off its stake in Lumileds and its memory test business. Agilent expects that the divestitures will be completed by the end of its fiscal year, Oct. 31, 2005.

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